Interactive Design

During this first week, students were assigned a reading Information Interaction Design: A Unified Field Theory of Design by Nathan Shedroff, the text can also be found at www.nathan.com/thoughts/unified/index.html.

This resource is particularly helpful in the areas of Information, Interactive and Sensorial Design, all of which are related because the process is identical and they all share the same goal of communicating to the audience whatever medium that may be. The combination of these three disciplines Shedroff terms Information Interactive Design.

Because the topic of this blog is Interactive Design, much focus will be on this subject. Firstly what is Interaction Design? Essentially, Interactive Design has to do with experiences, (sometimes it is referred to as Experience Design). Shedroff points out that interaction design

"...is essentially story-creating and telling, is at once both an ancient art and a new technology. Media have always effected the telling of stories and the creation of experiences, but currently new media offers capabilities and opportunities not yet addressed in the history of interaction and performance." (Shedroff 1994)

One of the interesting aspects Shedroff provides is an insight into the performing arts and how we as designers can gain insight about interactivity from this industry. The performing arts is a guide to interactivity because it relies on the combination of script writing, storytelling, performance and many elements such as artificial lighting, set building, music all combine to create a spectacle that while the audience is usually passive, they feel involved in the experience of the story. The same applies to a person attending a movie in a cinema.

"Each of these disciplines is particularly concerned with the communication of varied stories and messages through the creation of interesting and wonderful experiences."

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